http://www.databreaches.net/?p=8572
Stolen laptop held birth data on all Belizeans
November 28, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Government Sector, Non-U.S., Of Note, Theft
I supposed it was inevitable. A country’s entire population has had their birth certificate information stolen — and yes, because a laptop was left in an employee’s car.
Channel 5 in Belize reports:
Police are investigating the theft of a laptop that they fear could result in cases of identity theft. That’s because the stolen computer belongs to the Government of Belize and was issued to the head of the Vital Statistics Unit, Lovina Daniels. It contains confidential birth certificate information for the entire country. Daniels had the laptop in her Toyota Corolla Car, which she parked inside the Princess Hotel and Casino compound on Thursday night at around nine o’clock. But someone broke into the vehicle and took the computer along with a cell phone and the keys to the Vital Statistics Office. No one has been detained but police are working around the clock to find the culprit before the information is used for criminal purposes.
According to Wikipedia, Belize has an estimated population of 320,000.
Now, this is confusing. Most of the trend towards Big Brother-ness has been because new technology allows new (easier) surveillance. This is just a throwback to feudal times.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5805
AU: Police to have power to strip-search at random
November 28, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Non-U.S., Surveillance
Tom Reilly reports:
Police will soon have sweeping powers to search people at random, including strip-search, even if there is no reasonable suspicion those targeted have done anything wrong.
The ‘’stop and search” tactic is part of a law and order crackdown set to be passed by State Parliament, despite the Government conceding that the legislation breaches the Victorian Human Rights Charter.
Legal experts have labelled the proposed laws, which will enable officers to strip-search children and the disabled, as draconian and a knee-jerk reaction to the problem of drunken violence.
Read more in The Age.
(Related) This is more typical. Government has a new hammer, so everything now looks like a nail.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5808
Ar: New law forces DNA tests to find ‘disappeared’ kids
November 28, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Non-U.S., Youth
Mayra Pertossi of the Associated Press reports:
Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina’s Congress has authorized the forced collection of DNA from people who might have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago — even if they don’t want to know their birth parents. [“We're the government. We don't need no stinking volunteers!” Bob]
Rights activists hope that the new law will help find about 400 people who were stolen as babies, many from women who gave birth inside clandestine torture centers during the 1976-83 dictatorship.
But others see the law as unacceptable government intrusion.
Thousands of leftists disappeared in what became known as the dictatorship’s “dirty war” against political dissent. Children of the “disappeared” were often given to military or police families seen as loyal to the military government. Some did not know that they were adopted until activists or judges announced efforts to obtain their DNA.
Read more in the Austin American-Statesman.
Talk about a chilling effect! Wait till my local library hears about this. But, as the 'read more' articles report, there must be something we're not seeing. None of the lawyers quoted think the pub is liable.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10405824-83.html?tag=digg
Pub fined $13k for Wi-Fi copyright infringement
by David Meyer November 28, 2009 11:14 AM PST
A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined £8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.
Graham Cove told CNET sister site ZDNet UK on Friday he believes the case to be the first of its kind in the U.K. However, he would not identify the pub concerned, because its owner--a pub that is a client of The Cloud's--had not yet given their permission for the case to be publicized.
… The law surrounding open Wi-Fi networks and the liability of those running them is a grey area...
Read more of "Pub 'fined £8k' for Wi-Fi copyright infringement" and the followup story, "Law expert issues warning to open Wi-Fi operators," at ZDNet UK.
Perhaps not as interesting as Milton Friedman's illustration of the pencil as global commerce, but definitely along those lines.
What the iPod Tells Us About the World Economy
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 28, @12:15PM from the we-look-for-things-that-make-us-go dept.
Hugh Pickens writes
"Edmund Conway has an interesting article in the Telegraph where he analyzes where the money goes when you buy a complex electronic device marked 'Made in China,' and why a developed economy doesn't need a trade surplus in order to survive. For his example, Conway chooses a 30GB video iPod 'manufactured' in China in 2006. Each iPod, sold in the US for $299, provides China with an export value of about $150, but as it turns out, Chinese producers really only 'earned' around $4 on each unit. 'China, you see, is really just the place where most of the other components that go inside the iPod are shipped and assembled.' Conway says that when you work out the overall US balance of payments, it shows that most of the cash for high tech inventions has flowed back to the United States as a direct result of the intellectual property companies own in their products. 'While the iPod is manufactured offshore and has a global roster of suppliers, the greatest benefits from this innovation go to Apple, an American company, with predominantly American employees and stockholders who reap the benefits,' writes Conway. 'As long as the US market remains dynamic, with innovative firms and risk-taking entrepreneurs, global innovation should continue to create value for American investors and well-paid jobs for knowledge workers. But if those companies get complacent or lose focus, there are plenty of foreign competitors ready to take their places.'"
[Milton Friedman's pencil story (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8
Another strange, but illuminating article. Was Al Gore too late?
Modeling the Economy As a Physics Problem
Posted by kdawson on Saturday November 28, @05:33PM from the gazintas-and-comezoutas dept.
University of Utah physicist Tim Garrett has published a study that approaches the economy and its relation to global warming as a physics problem — and comes to some controversial conclusions: that rising carbon dioxide emissions cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day. The study was panned by economists and was rejected by several journals before its acceptance in the journal Climatic Change.
"[Garrett discovered that] Throughout history, a simple physical constant... links global energy use to the world's accumulated economic productivity, adjusted for inflation. So it isn't necessary to consider population growth and standard of living in predicting society's future energy consumption and resulting carbon dioxide emissions. ... 'I'm not an economist, and I am approaching the economy as a physics problem,' Garrett says. 'I end up with a global economic growth model different than they have.' Garrett treats civilization like a 'heat engine' that 'consumes energy and does "work" in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy,' he says. That constant is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, 'each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption,' Garrett says. ... Perhaps the most provocative implication of Garrett's theory is that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use."
(Related) This is very smart. First, it suggests they believe their data is accurate. Second, if anyone fiddled with the analysis of the data, they have distanced themselves and can claimed to be “shocked!” Perhaps my Statistics students can confirm some of their conclusions?
Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row
Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data - dubbed Climategate - have agreed to publish their figures in full.
By Robert Mendick Published: 8:55PM GMT 28 Nov 2009
… The full data, when disclosed, is certain to be scrutinised by both sides in the fierce debate.
Someone (lobbyist?) has convinced the government that this is a difficult problem. No reason I couldn't buy myself a “vacation gift card,” good at any casino in the world and then use it as my “stake.”
Government Delays New Ban On Internet Gambling
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 28, @10:55AM from the twenty-bucks-says-they-extend-it-again dept.
The Installer writes with this quote from the Associated Press:
"The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are giving US financial institutions an additional six months to comply with regulations designed to ban Internet gambling. ... The delayed rules would curb online gambling by prohibiting financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. The financial industry complained that the new rules would be difficult to enforce because they did not offer a clear definition of what constitutes Internet gambling. They had sought a 12-month delay in implementing provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that Congress had passed in 2006. ... US bettors have been estimated to supply at least half the revenue of the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted overseas."
Very interesting business model. Not sure if clients will be those looking for redundant backup, or those looking to offload their child-porn before crossing a border.
http://www.load2all.com/index.php
load2all
There is no file size limit! UNLIMITED! If you exceed the limit of one of mirror, we split your files to rar parts, upload it to 18 different mirror and give you ONE link!
For my website students.
FindMeByIP
Modernizr is a javascript library which detects your browsers' support for the latest CSS & HTML5 features. Essentially it tells you how modern your browser is.
Interesting geek tool
Update Your Hardware Drivers For Free With Device Doctor
Nov. 28th, 2009 By Karl L. Gechlik
(Related) For Windows and Firefox. Very cool.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/some-cool-keyboard-tricks-that-few-people-know-about/
Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About
Nov. 28th, 2009 By Tina
No comments:
Post a Comment